Renton Airport-Pg-3

Renton 1965-1967 - Page 3 - 727	Bob Bogash

Home Safety Index Reader Comments Contact

In November 1962, Boeing rolled out its first 727 Trijet. It made its First Flight from Renton in February 1963. That airplane made its last flight on 2 March 2016 and is now at the Museum of Flight in Seattle - click here for the complete story.

The 727 was destined to be a great success for Boeing. With 1832 produced, it was essentially without competition in the marketplace.

Kickoff customers United and Eastern airplanes began appearing on the Pre-Flight Line.

...and then taking over

This was the "No-engine" time period - when I lost my Flight Engineer's job...

An American 727-100

...and their first 727-200

Wardair

This airplane has a very interesting history.
The photo was taken at Renton late April 1966 just before First Flight.

It was purchased by Wardair, founded by Max Ward - a Canadian aviation pioneer. A WW II era RCAF pilot, Ward started Wardair with a de Havilland Otter after the war and grew it first as a bush airline flying in the north and later flying international charters. In the mid-1960s, he flew a DC-6B to Europe and southern destinations.

The airplane was named for Cy Becker - an early Canadian bush pilot and wartime fighter ace.

In 1965, Ward decided to replace the prop DC-6B with a jet for charters to Europe -- and to the surprise and amazement of all, he selected the "medium range 727-100". He then sold a summer's worth of European charters, with daily round-trips starting May 1, 1966. He sold a whole month's of charters for that month - with no airplane yet in sight - and merely promises from Boeing for an on-time delivery.

CF-FUN made its First Flight 20 Apr 1966, and delivered to Edmonton 5 days later on 25 April, only 5 days before the start of a full summer schedule. The airplane departed as planned on May 1st, and by the end of the month, had made 61 trans-Atlantic (and mostly trans-Canada) crossings! The airplane became famous for it's numerous sightings all over Europe and Canada. Casual observers thought Wardair had a fleet of airplanes. In reality, the "fleet" was just one airplane!

I took this photo of the airplane transiting Vancouver Airport (CYVR.)

I received the following historical Sidebar from Sandy Graham.
You can read more of his Boeing Memoirs here: http://www.sandyspen.com/

Max hired an operations manager named Jim MacGuire. Jim had been a Canadian Pacific Airlines captain and head of the Canadian pilots’ union before heart problems grounded him.

Max and Jim were opposites. Max was visionary, an entrepreneur and a believer in image and quality service. He set up offices on the top floor of one of Edmonton’s newest buildings and insisted on serving the finest Alberta beef to charter passengers paying unheard of low fares. They even carried beef to Europe for the return trip meals. Jim couldn’t understand this waste of money and believed in keeping operating costs down any way possible. He also looked after the details Max preferred to gloss over. That was vintage Jim MacGuire.

Jim sold Max on the idea of upgrading to a new 727, which had about the same range as the DC-6 but covered it in half the time. (Max wanted to buy British jets rather than American.)

Thinking that they had the financing lined up, the two of them showed up at Boeing’s sales building in Renton wanting to buy a 727. This had never happened before, so it took a while to round up a salesman and discuss what they had in mind. Unconvinced that they were a genuine customer, the salesman was skeptical. As Jim later told the story, they eventually were ushered into a conference room to discuss their plan with Jack Steiner, then head of the 727 program. Jack sat across from them with an array of people on either side.

At that time, the 727 was considered a medium range airplane and no one thought of it as a transatlantic transport. Jack asked what they planned to do with the airplane. They responded, fly it between Canada and Europe in a charter configuration. “But it doesn’t have the range for that.” “We would use a fueling stop in Greenland in each direction.” Jack asked his entourage “Can the airplane do that?” The question bounced down the line until one of the engineers said yes it could—with careful planning. Now Jack was interested, he could see a new opportunity opening. The questions got serious about how they would staff and maintain the airplane, etc. Jim said he had the feeling that he could have asked any question on any topic and somewhere in that room the answer would come back.

Finally convinced, Boeing accepted their check for $200,000 as earnest money. Max and Jim went home with a couple of weeks to firm up the financing. Unfortunately, the banks got cold feet and backed out. On the final Friday, Max called the salesman and told him they had to forfeit the earnest money. On Monday morning, the $200,000 check was back on Max’s desk and he was a committed Boeing fan.

A while later, they returned with financing and the contract was signed. People at Boeing were fired up to make this shoestring operation a success. And in service, at a time when seven or eight hours of actual 727 flying time per day was considered good, Wardair’s 727 averaged over fifteen. It did not have a single mechanical delay during the first year and Wardair’s charter operation was off and running.

The airplane often made Frobisher Bay (CYFB - now Iqaluit) on Baffin Island as a fuel stop. I worked frequently at Frobisher (1968-72) and spent a lot of time living there in early summer 1970. Like others at FB, I became accustomed to seeing CF-FUN transiting the airfield at all hours of the day and night - almost believing myself that it was a fleet of airplanes. Each time I saw it land, I knew that it had completed a trans-Atlantic (or trans-Canada to western Canada) round-trip in what seemed like just a few hours since it had landed last.

Thousands of passengers, with all their travel and hotel arrangements etc, depended on the reliability of this one airplane - and it did not let them down. Nor, the airline. It flew an amazingly heavy daily western Canada - Europe round-trip schedule for six months with essentially perfect on-time reliability. While most 727s flew 7-8 hours/day, FUN flew 15 or more. The others laughed, but Max picked the right airplane!

Wardair went on to buy 2 707-320cs and 4 747s, and later many more airplanes, until over-expansion led to financial troubles and the airline was sold to Canadian Pacific (aka CP Air, aka Canadian Airlines Intl, which itself was later merged into Air Canada.)

Now you know where the term "White Tail" comes from.
Likely a National Tail Number in the "Before" stage.

My good friend Ernie Altice was the Rep assigned to Ariana Afghan.
At the time it was considered the most exotic, remote location and volunteers were solicited - Ernie volunteered.

A lot of people don't realize, or remember, but Northeast was the kick-off customer for the 727-200 version.

Departing Renton

Here is test airplane landing at Boeing Field.

Faucett of Peru

Trans-Carib

In 1968 I was assigned as Rep to Trans-Carib at JFK to help them introduce their new 727s.
Trans-Carib was an interesting airline - at the time, they had three (3) stations! NY-JFK, SJU (San Juan, Puerto Rico), and Aruba. But they flew to other Caribbean destinations. And, they did do a lot of charter flying - primarily for the U.S. military - mostly using DC-8s and occasionally a 707. I did spend a lot of time in San Juan!

What I remember most of my sojourn with Trans-Carib was a military charter we made to Thule AFB in northern Greenland. The temperature was probably 50 Below and there we were in this airplane with Titles: Trans Caribbean on the side and a palm tree on the tail. The Air Force pushed up a stand to the front door, I opened the door, and an young airman bundled in a heavy parka, blowing lots of steam in the biting cold, looked at me and said "Boy, are you lost!!!" A comment for the Ages.

One of my TCA 727-100s - this one at JFK.

After I left JFK, they lost one of their 727s in a landing accident at the short 4650 ft runway at St. Thomas, 28 Dec 1970 killing two passengers.

The aircraft bounced twice on landing and touched down a third time at 2700 feet past the runway 09 (4650 feet long) threshold. The right wing struck the ground, and the aircraft ran off the side of the runway, passed through a fence, crossed a highway and came to a halt against a hillside.
The weather was: clear, visibility >30 miles; wind 100/10 kts.

PROBABLE CAUSE: "The captain's use of improper techniques in recovering from a high bounce generated by a poorly executed approach and touchdown. Lack of cockpit crew coordination during the approach and attempted recovery contributed to the accident."

Here's one of three interesting airplanes
Built for the C.I.A. - operating under the markings of Southern Air Transport.
Before D.B. Cooper - Boeing was testing dropping people and cargo out the aft airstairs.